The Paradigm House

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Saturday, January 4, 2014

By: Shazia YousufLast year, a friend posted a status on Facebook which read:

I found this idea quite interesting, however I did not quite remember to actually do this myself. The entire year passed and I had quite forgotten about it, but then on the 31st of December, that same friend posted an album, the caption of which said: "I opened my Happy Jar".And suddenly I remembered her status at the beginning of the year!Here are some of the pictures from her album that I thought worth sharing with my readers.

Friday, November 22, 2013

I don’t understand why numbers mean so much. It’s everywhere and it ruins everything. It’s in how much money you have in the bank, in how many likes you got on your facebook profile picture, in what your GPA is, and even in how many followers you have. I am frustrated at numbers!

The number 3098482 is absolutely nothing until you add the $ in front of it. Number 5 should mean nothing until you say that it’s your GPA. It’s like some currency that determines, judges, and categorizes people. At some point, you’re at 2.3 GPA and everyone tells you that you will never be successful or go to a great college or have a great job or have a stunning life with beautiful children or a wonderful husband, all because of the "freaking numbers"!

Can’t I be enough to define who I am? Isn’t that what they claim to be doing? Then why are we still feeding off of numbers and more numbers?

Monday, September 30, 2013

Charles Baudelaire – the French poet and art critic,once wrote,“The greatest trick the Devil ever pulled was convincing the world he didn’t exist.” As the master of scheming and deception, passing from shadow to shadow, the Devil is believed to be the supreme manipulator of human beings. But if we were to allow ourselves to be really solemn for a moment, the very obscurity of the Devil has always been the product of a social form. One perceives in the belief of the shapelessness of the Devil the social alibi of a cunning and evil order that has more to do with humanity than with some supernatural entity. If in a moment of clarity we were to stand up to the Devil and drag him back into a world of physical reality and concrete terms, it would be seen that the very characteristic that we have long attributed to his evil is actually representative of the condition of society and the ideological structure beneath it. Here the political or socialideals are not being referred to, but rather the ideological structure on which these ideals are based. The precise formlessness of ideology, which is the pretext of most social evil, is similar to the myth of the Devil.

Wednesday, August 7, 2013

After
hours waiting, suffering in the heat of summer and longing for relief, what if
I told you that you couldn’t share iftar with your family? What if I told
you,“Tonight, you won’t have the joy of breaking the fast.”

You might
be angry and outraged, or wonder “Why?”

For some of our brothers and sisters
around the world, the answer is simple --they just don’t have access to food.

While you and I may be fortunate enough to share tonight’s final iftar with our families, tens of millions of others won’t have the chance.

Monday, May 27, 2013

"Marriages are decided in heaven, solemnized on earth and humiliated before Courts."

I have just rephrased this old famous saying contemporary to the present era, where, in fact the marriages are humiliated before Courts. In order to avoid such an immaculate insult in open court by stating fictitious and aggravated comments on each other, the couples must first consult a Marriage Counselor.

Monday, May 6, 2013

Often we are driven by the objective to win a conversational battle, to prove ourselves more intellectually profound than others, to prove others wrong, to find faults in others. In pursuit of this objective we totally forget that:

"Sometimes it is better to be kind than to be right.

We do not need an intelligent mind that speaks, but a patient heart that listens."

Monday, April 22, 2013

Every year on April 22, more than one billion people take part in Earth Day. Across the globe, individuals, communities, organizations, and governments acknowledge the amazing planet we call home and take action to protect it.

Earth Day 2013: The Face of Climate Change

Climate change has many faces.

A man in the Maldives worried about relocating his family as sea levels rise, a farmer in Kansas struggling to make ends meet as prolonged drought ravages the crops, a fisherman on the Niger River whose nets often come up empty, a child in New Jersey who lost her home to a super-storm, a woman in Bangladesh who can’t get fresh water due to more frequent flooding and cyclones…

And they’re not only human faces.

They’re the polar bear in the melting arctic, the tiger in India’s threatened mangrove forests, the right whale in plankton-poor parts of the warming North Atlantic, the orangutan in Indonesian forests segmented by more frequent bushfires and droughts…

These faces of climate change are multiplying every day.

For many, climate change can often seem remote and hazy – a vague and complex problem far off in the distance that our grandchildren may have to solve. But that’s only because they’re still fortunate enough to be insulated from its mounting consequences. Climate change has very real effects on people, animals, and the ecosystems and natural resources on which we all depend. Left unchecked, they’ll spread like wildfire.

Luckily, other faces of climate change are also multiplying every day.

Every person who does his or her part to fix the problem is also a Face of Climate Change: the entrepreneurs who see opportunity in creating the new green economy, the activists who organize community action and awareness campaigns, the engineers who design the clean technology of the future, the public servants who fight for climate change laws and for mitigation efforts, the ordinary people who commit to living sustainably…

On April 22, 2013, more than one billion people around the world will take part in the 43rd anniversary of Earth Day. From Beijing to Cairo, Melbourne to London, Rio to Johannesburg, New Delhi to New York, communities everywhere will voice their concerns for the planet, and take action to protect it.

We must harness that power to show the world The Face of Climate Change. And we’ll call on our leaders to act boldly together, as we have, in this pivotal year.

Sunday, February 24, 2013

Pain of losing a loved one cannot heal, it never can. You must try to bury it with the deceased; but both continue to live on in your heart, they never die. The pain and sorrow of the loss stay fresh as a new wound, but time teaches you to move on in life with the burden of sorrow buried within.Pain at times is good; it lets you realise the pain of others. It gives your life a direction, a meaning - to add meaning to others' lives, to be a source of relieving sorrows with any kind deed, words of encouragement, a listeneing ear, or a simple smile.So whenever your heart aches in rememberance of a beloved, go out and heal others.

Tuesday, January 15, 2013

The bitterness of winter, ice cold rains,
crisp skin thrashing winds, none could stir those that were a part of the
sit-in at Alamdar. United against one cause, to not let the deaths of their
loved ones go unnoticed like the deaths of so many innocent victims of mass
killings.

Friday, October 26, 2012

“In keeping with Hazrat Ibrahim’s submission to the Divine command to slaughter his son Ismail, on the day after Hajj, Muslims all over the world celebrate Eid, highlighting Allah’s mercy towards that supreme sacrifice by replacing Ismail with a sheep. It is a sacrifice not of a goat, or a cow or a camel but of need, love, desire, habit, greed and a thousand other obstacles in the way of submitting to truth. It represented the death of ego, whereas Muslims merely slaughtered an animal.” Abdul Sattar Edhi.

May this Eid ul Azha be the source of true joy attained by the sacrifice of ego, greed, desire, love and all obstacles that prevent us from submitting completely to the Divine Being. We must remember:

"It is not their meat, nor their blood, that reaches Allah; it is your piety that reaches Him….And give good tidings [O’ Prophet], to all who do acts of righteousness.” (Al Quran, The Pilgrimage, 22:37)

Tuesday, September 25, 2012

Most of the elderly aunties are heard chanting this. A lot of us actually believe in this too. In fact, marriages don’t just happen! At the back of the mind, everyone is a believer of the fact that all marriages that take place and those that eventually work out well have something to do with the cupid up there in the heaven. Anyone just doesn’t get married to anyone. There is believed to be some Divine energy associated with marriages.

Getting married was easier in the past. Maybe cupid was more efficient back then. In eastern society marriages were mostly arranged. Parents would take the decision first, ask for the children’s wish and consent later and close the deal. The children mostly had to agree since they usually had no other option available but to say yes. Love marriages also happened. But love relationships were also limited to just seeing, liking and concluding that yes this is Love! Decision making was easier. Marriages worked out, people lived happily ever after too, or at least they tried to. Mostly, people married first and love blossomed eventually. Even if it didn’t, marriages still survived, maybe due to closely knit family structures and family pressures. Match making was simple, yet many a times, the matches were a total mismatch! The marriages still had to work.

Friday, September 21, 2012

Ever since the news of the objectionable video on Prophet Muhammad
(sm) has spread amongst the Muslims, there has been a lot of anger and rage
throughout the Muslim world. Anger, sadness, and resentment are the obviously
expected reactions when someone who is kept in high esteem and is highly loved
is ridiculed and mocked.

In response to this video, there have been protests, rallies and
demonstrations throughout the world to take this video off the internet.Muslims of
Saudia, Kuwait and UAE have not shown any reaction to this. Their leadership
has however spoken directly to the US authorities, conveying their grief and
concern over the obnoxious film.

There have been protests outside the US embassies
all over the world including Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen, Libya, Philippines,
Indonesia, Egypt, Paris and Australia.

“Hundreds of Muslims took to the streets of
Australia's largest city, some throwing rocks and bottles in clashes with
police. Some carried placards reading ‘Behead all those who insult the Prophet’”.

This text written on placards in Australia shocked
me. I always thought that the violent reaction in our part of the world was a
result of lack of education and enlightenment. But I am sure Muslims in
Australia must definitely be more educated compared to people in countries like
ours.

Today, in Pakistan, we are observing “Youm-e-Ishq-e-Rasool”,
a day to express our love for our beloved Prophet Muhammad SAWW. Prominent
buildings are burning, protestors pelting stones, there is fire on streets.
Looking at the news it seems we are heading back to the dark ages
(dour-e-jahalat). Or maybe we never came out of the dark ages in the first
place.

If we were Muslims not just by birth but if we actually practiced
Islam, we would be the most patient, most tolerant race on the face of the
earth. We have been taught to “exhort one another to truth and exhort one
another to endurance” (Quran [Al-Asr, 103:3])

Wednesday, July 4, 2012

Searching
for “Prince Charming” is the dream of every young girl. But, the criteria of
choosing their Prince these days are quite divergent from their parents’
choice!

Immature
inexperienced girls are often charmed by the physical appearance of the guys who
impress girls by their trendy outfits, cool hair styles, latest perfumes and
their obsessive conversations. These are enough to impress and trap simple
girls coming from average backgrounds.

Guys
lure girls for various motives which include acquiring wealth in the form of
dowry and more at later stages, using the girls in different negative
activities; human-trafficking is one of them. The girls are often trapped and
fall prey in the name of love and presumptions of baseless promises.

To
escape from the suffocating atmosphere at home, dating under burqas is now quite
common. These dates eventually end up with court marriage without the parents’
wishes and consent.

Friday, May 25, 2012

The process of never giving up on your dreams is simple: Just keep going. Don't stop believing in yourself.

There comes a time in your life when giving up seems easier than trying harder. You find it hard to cope up with everything. Perhaps the competition is tough or it's not a great time for your work to survive. You tell yourself, Ok...maybe, this isn't what I'm supposed to do so that's why I'm having trouble dealing with it. Or maybe you tell yourself that, hey! I'm not destined to do this which is why I keep on failing. And then you give up. You pack your bags and leave. You find it easier to do that.

But imagine what could have happened if you hadn't escaped? Hadn't given up? Had tried a little harder? Pushed your limits a bit further? Dreamed bigger than you had dreamed before? Or simply, had just kept going?

Friday, May 18, 2012

(So what have you decided, do you wish to live with your husband
or not?)

This is a typical question a Judge asks a woman, who files a
case in the court for obtaining “khula”
(divorce initiated by a female). The usual reply from most of the women is:

“No Sir, I don’t want to live with my husband anymore.”

The Judge then announces the dissolution of the marriage by way
of khula between the couple. And it
adds up as one more entry into my list of disposal cases.

As cases add on to my list, they bring a lot of questions to my
mind. Will this woman miss her good memorable time spent with her ex-husband? Or
will she just remember those bad phases, on grounds of which, she applied for khula? What will this woman now do? How
will she tackle her life? How will she now plan for her future?

Handling such cases on a daily basis, the major question that arises
in mind is: